Domesticated Silver Fox

The domesticated silver fox (marketed as the Siberian fox) is a domesticated form of the silver morph of the red fox. As a result of selective breeding, the new foxes not only became tamer, but more dog-like as well. The result of over 50 years of experiments in the Soviet Union and Russia, the breeding project was set up in 1959 by the Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev. It continues today at The Institute of Cytology and Genetics at Novosibirsk, under the supervision of Lyudmila Trut.

Unlike dogs which are domesticated breeds of wolves, these pups are the decedents of foxes. Like wolves, foxes are also canines, but unlike wolves they were never domesticated by humans.